Kim Kardashian explains why she didn't invite her surrogate to her baby shower

Kim Kardashian’s celebration for baby No. 3 was filled with famous guests and cherry blossoms, but there was one person noticeably absent from festivities: her surrogate.

The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star had a last-minute baby shower, but opted not to invite the woman who will give birth to her and Kanye West’s daughter early next year. “I, um, I did not [invite the surrogate],” Kim said of her decision on The Real on Thursday. “I did introduce her to my family.”

“You know, I just thought, I don’t know, it was, like, a weird decision to have to make,” she explained. “Of course, I would’ve wanted her to be there and be a part of it, but I hadn’t really gone that far in explaining it to my kids yet. So I have to figure that out first before they really see, and then if we’re celebrating, you know, her, I just want to celebrate the baby. I think I have to explain it to my kids first and figure out how I’m going to explain it to them.”

Kardashian maintains she “loves” her surrogate, saying they have the “best relationship.”

“She’s so nice. She is the perfect person to do this for my family. She’s great. She’s been amazing,” Kardashian added, acknowledging there’s a “taboo” nature around the topic of surrogacy. “People don’t really understand it.”

“I mean, even throwing my baby shower, do I have a baby shower? What do I do? I thought I wanted to because I wanted North to experience a party, like, ‘Something’s coming, someone’s coming. We’re going to welcome our little sister coming.’ So I think that really like got everyone in the mood,” she said. “But there are no rules.”

Kardashian continued, “It’s like, you know, I saw online people were saying today, like, ‘Did you invite your surrogate to the shower? Is she invited?’ What are the rules? There are no rules, and I’m trying to figure it out. But I thought I’d want to be open about my experience because it’s what I’m going through.”

The baby shower wound up being thrown together last-minute, and the reality star described it as “tea for my friends.” Chrissy Teigen and sisters Khloé, Kylie, and Kendall were all in attendance.

Kardashian, 37, and West, 40, decided to have a baby via surrogate after her two difficult pregnancies with North, 4, and Saint, who turns 2 next month. It turns out an earlier report that the surrogate was a fan of the show is true.

“She was, you know, someone that had watched the show, not like a superfan or anything, that it would have been uncomfortable, but she had seen my struggle and seen how open I was about it. So she was really proud to do it and really excited,” Kim admitted. “You could do it totally anonymously. You could go that route and I just felt like I wanted whoever’s carrying my baby, like, what if they weren’t a fan of me or my husband and what if they didn’t want to be carrying our baby? I wanted to give them that choice and be, like, proud and on the same page. I wanted a relationship with her.”

Kardashian was also quoted this week as saying surrogacy is harder than pregnancy. “You know, it is really different,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “Anyone that says or thinks it is just the easy way out is just completely wrong. I think it is so much harder to go through it this way, because you are not really in control. … It’s definitely a harder experience than I anticipated just in the control area.”